Writing Privacy

Why do we become sentimental over objects? I’m discovering the extent of my attachment after a late decision to treat myself this festive period.

I’ve had the same computer speakers for almost 30 years – an imposing Fujitsu sub that came with my first ever PC box.

They are my longest surviving piece of tech hardware, and I’ve enjoyed them for a long time. They’ve proven incredible value for money.

But they have deteriorated a lot in recent years. Even at maximum volume, I now struggle to hear something from the other side of the room.

Three years ago, I got a Samsung soundbar / sub combo for the living room. It reminded me what meaningful bass used to sound like, and has drawn the weakening sound from my desktop setup into sharp comparison.

I’ve resisted all urges to replace these antiques, until this year. I was recently catching up with an old friend for the first time in several years, who had recently got new equipment and planted the idea. So, perhaps that unusual event was the impetus.

My 2024 Christmas present to myself is some new Creative Pebble X speakers with a robust square sub. If I was going to replace the veterans, it had to be worthwhile.

But it really washed over me, as I carefully detached the Fujitsu kit for the last time. I’ve had these for two thirds of my life. Plastic, with some basic electronics, and I’m finding myself terribly sentimental over it.

I’ve tried out the new speakers, and they are glorious. Loud, rich, serious noise. And it does soften the blow. Good sound makes me feel good, and the old kit is no longer capable of that.

I did think, ‘Is it just mind over matter? Perhaps if you just brave the new, you’ll welcome the change.’ But the ‘change’ element is only half complete. The old speakers are still with us, tucked neatly under the same desk they’ve lived for some three and a half years – just over a tenth of their lives.

Perhaps the hardest bit will be when it comes to parting with them. Our local electronics recycling bank has recently been taken away and there’s no immediate sign of it returning, so there is a stay of execution.

“Humanness”

My mum always said my dad was a hoarder. He kept old relics from his parents, old wooden squash rackets, ridiculous amounts of old paperwork.

I have tried to be more pragmatic. My parents have only moved home twice that I can remember. Since their most recent move in 1997, I have moved eight times. If you rent or live the sort of life that requires you to be ‘upwardly mobile’, you can’t drag your entire life history with you everywhere you go.

I have one memory box, a blue case, that is crammed with brochures, certificates, tickets, memorabilia. The policy has to be ‘one in, one out’.

But physical objects that you’ve used constantly for so long are not relics or memories that you occasionally forget you had. They’re like an extension of your body, or at least your behaviour.

Experts are still getting to grips with so-called ‘object attachment’ and why people develop elevated judgement values with objects. A recent article for the Journal of Behavioural Addictions terms it ‘humanness‘ in its title, but without offering any straightforward definition of what that means.

Older theories dating back decades suggest that objects may be meeting unmet esteem and belonging needs. I can understand how this might apply to the time these speakers of mine were acquired, but less so how it still applies now.

My instinct to label it an extension of the body suggests at anthropomorphism, where we attribute human qualities to objects. Experiments have shown that undergraduate students attributed more human traits onto inanimate objects after recalling a time they felt lonely.

So, maybe that’s it. Over the many years I’ve had these speakers, loneliness has been a factor more than it hasn’t. This year, of course, marks the biggest possible milestone in leaving that past behind. And maybe that has quietly influenced the choice.

Still, I’m surprised – and perhaps a little moved – at how long sentimentality has held me back from updating and replacing a clearly exhausted set of speakers, and how much it continues to linger in my mind.

There’s clearly an attachment psychology to something – however arbitrary – that has paid a loyal service for nearly three decades. And the thought of just discarding it seems strangely upsetting.

As challenges go, it’s not one I would have foreseen for 2025, but one I will face, nonetheless.